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bill berry:

I appreciate the time that you will take to chat with me and suspect my conversation with you will be an “eye opener” for the aaduna readership so let’s get right into it. You write under the pseudonym “Persecution Avenue.” While guarding one’s true identity is nothing new in the world of literature, I am intrigued with the name you selected, Persecution Avenue. What’s it about this particular name that led you to use it. I am sure there is a story and rationale; please share the reason for the name and why you feel that it best fits who you are as a person and poet/spoken word artist.

 

Persecution:

I’m happy to do it.

The name’s birth was a long evolution instead of one definitive event. Laughing to myself, Persecution came from a night of drinking and Avenue from a night of listening to Erykah Badu. The 2nd grade and the discovery of Amiri Baraka left me wanting a pen name; and the struggle through an abbreviated version of Dante’s Inferno left me with an obsession with the number seven. I was a weird kid like that; into the expected slam artists’ influences like Baraka but also enamored by religious, philosophical, classical literature well outside of my grasp. Thus, I started using Seven as a name and swore it was the deepest thing in conception. Throughout middle school and high school, the obsession with the completeness of Seven intensified. During my first year in the Navy, I still used the name even though I increasingly felt the name was juvenile and poorly conceived. Erykah Badu named her son Sevyn and I knew I had to let it go. I was probably ready to change it anyway.

"This Little City" 

Spoken word piece highlighting the "colorful" truths of conscious life in Baltimore city published in Volume 4 Issue 2 edition of Aaduna ...

 

 

This little city, my little city with the siren soundtrack:

where the B-more Black- birds smoke and mirrors lend the opium outcasts a purple hue; the opaque outrage at the state of the avenue.

A city again lost when they lose and so we choose to get tossed

 in the latent lavender suited lies of our pink politicians.

Forgetting their triple bra platform;

 are Sheila’s shopping habits the only notable mention...

 

Click the title to read full piece

 

 

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